Friday, February 15, 2019

Since the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) the OA movement has had many successes, many surprises, and many disappointments. OA initiatives have also often had unintended consequences and the movement has been beset with disagreement, divisiveness, and confusion.

In that sense, the noise and rancour surrounding Plan S is nothing new, although the discord is perceptibly greater. What seems clear is that Plan S raises challenging questions for those in the Global South.

And even if Plan S fails to win sufficient support to achieve its objectives, ongoing efforts in Europe to trigger a “global flip” to open access, and the way in which open content is likely to be monetised by commercial publishers, both suggest that the South needs to develop its own (alternative) strategy.

I have explored what I see as the issues and discuss a possible strategy in the attached essay here.

The essay ends with an interview with Omar Barreneche, Executive Secretary of Uruguay’s National Agency for Research and Innovation (ANII).

A 1,400-word edited extract from this essay can be read on the LSE Impact Blog here.